The Government of Australia reported on Tuesday that it ordered all its diplomats to leave Ukraine due to the “increasing risk” of Russia’s military shipment to the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, self-proclaimed separatist republics, with the goal of “keeping the peace”.
In the middle of the month Australia already ordered that all the staff of the Australian Embassy leave Kiev and was providing consular services in the Ukrainian city of Lviv (Lviv), 70 kilometers from the border with Poland.
“Our Embassy and operations in Lviv are temporarily closed. We have deployed our Australian officials to eastern Poland and Romania to provide assistance to Australians seeking to leave Ukraine,” Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said in a statement today.
With its evacuation, Australia, which has urged all its citizens to leave Ukraine, follows in the footsteps of the United States, which decided to send its diplomats to Polynia for security reasons, without this meaning that Washington’s support for Ukraine is undermined. Kiev, according to sources from the North American country. Likewise, Payne, who is in Europe to address, among other issues, the crisis in Ukraine, explained that the Executive in Canberra coordinates closely with the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and other nations in response to Russian aggression against Ukraine.
“Together with our partners, although it contemplates the possibility of providing military equipment if the crisis worsens. Canberra has also pledged to expand training for Ukrainian officials to counter cyberattacks, potentially from Russia, following Payne’s meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend.